The SFA’s response to Cerny’s Celtic Park antics is pathetic … and dangerous.

“Patriae vestrae, vitae vestrae, omnibus rebus exitium moliti sunt — et nisi scelus eorum punitur, maiore vi redibit. Ne defendat eos quod nondum arma contra vos ceperint; cepissent, nisi deprehensi essent. Servare vitam eorum, quia necdum perfecerunt scelus, est insania — exspectatisne dum perficiant? Estne crimen crimen solum postquam expletum est?” – Marcus Porcius Cato

Will the SFA ever change? It is always a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same with this lot.

This was the week in which we finally got rid of Alan Muir. Not only punished, but gone completely. As we once got rid of Hugh Dallas. As we once got rid of Jim Farry. He will haunt our dreams no more.

But the SFA is an organisation that changes only in increments. It is still deeply rooted in certain traditions. And one of those traditions is that you do not upset the club at Ibrox unless you have no other choice. If there is a way to fudge an issue involving them, they’ll find it. If there’s a way to ignore it completely, they will try to do just that. It is the one thing on which you can always rely.

Yesterday they outdid themselves with the Vaclav Cerny verdict.

During the latter days of the Roman Republic, during Cicero’s consulship, he uncovered what became known as the Catiline Conspiracy — named for Catilina, who was the public face of the plot (though likely not its brain). The conspiracy had the support and connivance of several senators and other Roman noblemen. Cicero had them arrested and was trying to determine what to do with them.

During the Senate debate, Caesar — who Cicero suspected was the true mastermind — intervened to suggest that, because none of the men involved had actually committed a high crime (they had been arrested while it was still just a plot), they did not deserve to be put to death.

He recommended either exile or a kind of house arrest inside the city.

Remarkably, that would have swayed the debate — even in spite of Cicero’s renowned oratory. It was an intervention by Cato the Younger, who would fight for the Republic until his dying breath, that sealed the conspirators’ fate.

The few historical texts which record his words still carry their power.

I opened the piece with the Latin version. Here is the translation.

“They have plotted the destruction of their country, of your lives, of everything — and unless their crime is punished, it will return stronger. Do not let the fact that they have not yet taken up arms against you be their defence; they would have, had they not been caught. To spare their lives on the grounds that they have not yet succeeded is madness — would you wait until they do? Is a crime only a crime when it’s completed?”

Cato was saying that you should punish certain acts as if they had resulted in the most serious consequences, because to do otherwise was a foolish action which only made those consequences more likely. If we’re now saying that such provocative behaviour, in this most volatile of fixtures, in an effort to antagonise rival fans are not worthy of a more serious response then a talking to then that’s a dangerous joke.

The Muir incident was pretty cut and dried. Once you heard the audio, there was no way he could survive. We all thought he might anyway — because this is the SFA, after all, and they are very reluctant ever to admit that they’ve got things wrong. Or that their officials are capable of getting things wrong. They are certainly not going to admit that there are bigger problems than just basic incompetence.

Because to admit that the problem exists means having to tackle it… and they would rather not.

The length of time it has taken for them to even put the Cerny case in front of a disciplinary panel was plainly idiotic, but it was telling too; if he’d been charged would the SFA have felt compelled to act then? Of course.

As it is, you wonder why they bothered with the hearing since that gave them their own Get Out Of Jail Free card. Most of us had assumed they were just going to ignore it, sweep it away, and forget it ever happened. Frankly, it might have been better if they had. To not acknowledge the problem would have been so typically of “the Hampden way”; people would barely have blinked at that outcome.

But they opted for a more dangerous course of action; to downplay the incident, in the way Caesar and his supporters had tried to downplay the Catiline Conspiracy on the grounds that the plotters hadn’t succeeded. As Cato pointed out, their success would have meant that the senators who were being asked to vote for clemency would have been dead and unable to render any future judgement.

The SFA knew full well that Cerny had a case to answer.

They accept that he had a case to answer.

They accept that his behaviour rose to the level of a disciplinary.

So the outcome is pathetic. It is weak. It is cowardly.

We waited all this time for what? For nothing whatsoever to happen. For a sentence worth less than nothing, one that said, “Don’t worry that your behaviour could have sparked a riot. It didn’t, and so we’ll let you off.”

Had it started a riot, what would the SFA’s response have been then?

Had Celtic fans lost the plot and stormed the pitch, there would have been a major inquest into the incident.

There might even have been another meeting of the Scottish Parliament.

In those circumstances, he would have been punished.

Because there would have been no point in pretending that doing so was not the appropriate sentence.

If his behaviour had provoked real trouble, there’s no question he’d have copped a lengthy ban. The worst was avoided; that was down to our supporters showing restraint. His behaviour is no less despicable because it had no real world impact.

It is obvious to everyone that his behaviour was inflammatory.

We are all grateful that no serious trouble ensued.

But it was incumbent upon the SFA not to differentiate between an incident that did cause trouble and one that might have caused it. The intent is the same. The offence is the same. This had no major consequences. He should not be allowed to skate because our fans know how to behave.

We ought not to treat these things as if the outcome is the only thing that matters.

Players are sanctioned for celebrating with their own fans because that has the potential for someone to get hurt; the SFA don’t wait for someone to actually get hurt before imposing the sanction. This is different only in that this is much more serious.

That offence deserved a punishment — if only as a deterrent. Because that, ultimately, is what rules are supposed to do: not only punish those who commit them but to act as a deterrent to those who later might.

Back in the late Roman Republic, Cato the Younger knew what had to be done. It was a momentous time and there were momentous men such as Cato and Cicero and Caesar at its heart, and they were driving the tide of history before them.

Look at who rules Scottish football. These people are swept along in the waters, they do not make their own waves.

This was a much less complex case, a much more straightforward decision and for hilariously modest stakes, especially when there is virtually nothing left of the Ibrox season worth saving and so the decision wouldn’t even have hit them that hard.

But the rule that above all must be respected in Scottish football is that you do not upset Ibrox if you can avoid it, and so the SFA imposed its verbal caution. Those at Ibrox act out, and the game’s leaders bend over backwards not to act.

That this has led us down the road to ruin numerous times already – as Cato himself would have confidently predicted – appears not to trouble those at the heart of our affairs. They are a joke. This verdict is a joke.